You may (but probably not) have been wondering what had happened to any new posts over the last few months. Well… to cut the long story short, we moved to Spain. For a bit of clarity, this was not for professional reasons, more for health and wellbeing. And despite the carpet of administrative obligations and the Kafkaesque nature of the procedures that the Spanish have decided would be a fitting gesture to welcome any new arrivals with, it has been the right decision.
What is also a feature of the Spanish
linguistic setup is just how many words aren’t from Latin at all. You think you
know Spanish just because you speak French or Italian, then Arabic comes to give
your culo a good palmadito.
You can recognise these because the particle
al- or ar- or simply a- is featured often at the beginning
and then the root word. And often there’s a consonant or vowel position that’s
been changed. Whether that’s due to mishearing the word or by wilful confusion
for the sake of it is up for debate.
Most of the Arabic words in Spanish are
either edible or to do with people and places, and we can take a look at just some
of these charming features that make Spanish that little bit different to the
rest.
Vegetables and herbs
Just when you want to get some basil
(Italian = basilico, French = basilique), you need to look out for some albahaca.
After the prefix, habaca in Arabic is a word used to describe any
aromatic plant or herb used in cooking or for medicinal purposes. The word basil
comes the Greek βασιλικόν φυτόν, vasilikon
phuton, meaning royal plant.
Looking for carrots (Italian = carota,
French = carotte)? Forget something similar-looking. They’re called zanahoria.
This came to Spanish through the Arabic safunarya, and this in turn from
the Greek σταφυλίνη ἀγρία, staphylini
agria, which basically means wild carrot. Yes, I’m thinking the same
as you…
Now… what’s the one thing that comes to mind
when you think of Spanish cooking? Olive oil, right? Nope (Italian =
olio d’oliva, French = huile d’olive). You should be looking for aceite,
which comes from aceituna, the Spanish word for olive. Through this
word, we can be reminded just how old the art of olive growing and production
is. The Arabic word zaytun is a direct descendent of the Aramaic word zaytuna,
making this one of the oldest living words, and a pleasure to know and respect.
You want to get some cotton? You should
look for some algodón. If you squint hard enough, it looks familiar,
right? The Arabic word is al qutn, and the material came directly into
Europe just as soon as trade became a thing about 7000 years ago.
I feel like a juicy slice of watermelon. Surely
the “melon” part would be included? No? Oh… If you want some too, look for Sandía.
In Arabic, it’s sandiyya, and in classical Arabic, sindiyya, most
likely named after the Sindh region of modern southern Pakistan. The
very first evidence of watermelons is from around the Dead Sea in the Early
Bronze Age, and later on in the 6th century BCE in North Africa.
They reached the Indian subcontinent by the
seventh century CE, and Spain via the Moors in the tenth century CE, which
makes us wonder how the Sindh region picked up the accolade for the name. These
days, China produces more watermelons than the rest of the world put together,
but for taste and quality, this is naturally a matter of discretion.
People and places
When you want a place to keep things until
you need them, you naturally look for a storage facility (Italian =
magazzino, French = magasin), which funnily enough come from the Arabic makhazin
or makhzan. The Spanish also took from this word but made it their
own. Almacén attaches that al- prefix they love so much,
and then they miss out the guttural bit in the middle. This particular Arabic
word has made it into lots of other languages, such as Danish, Polish and
Dutch.
Interesting side-factoid: American English
often gets criticised for its tone-deaf meddling in perfectly good words. One
of the sharpest criticisms is the use of “store” instead of “shop”. The French
word for both a storage place and a shop is magasin. The reason why the
Americans use “store” is because in the early days of the 13 colonies, much of
the imports had to be stored before being sold. Makes more sense now, although don’t
think I’ve become an advocate of US English!
When you arrive in another country not in
your economic bloc, you have to pass through customs. This word is pretty
universal in the Latin Empire (Italian = dogana, French = douane). In Spanish
it’s aduana. And here again is that a- prefix. There are several
probable sources of the word, but the most likely is from the Arabic al diwan,
which came from the Persian dewan, and was a place that the authorities
sat to distribute justice. The divan comes from this – those Middle
Eastern bosses liked to be comfortable when dispensing orders…
Would you like to get comfortable? Let me
get you a cushion (Italian = cuscino, French = coussin). If you’re in Spain
though, you’ll need an almohada. This comes from the Arabic al mkhad.
In Arabic, khad is the side of your face, or your cheek, which helps us
now to grasp its sense.
Every city has a mayor (Italian = borgomastro/sindaco,
French = maire), but in Spain, you go to the alcalde. This is from the
Arabic al qadi, someone who can make a judgement. Arabic has a lot of
names for people of wisdom, many of which are directly transcribed into
European languages, such as Sheik, Vizier, Faqir, Emir,
and the one I like the most, Waqf, which as a daily Scrabble player, is
one I always remember if I have that letter combination in my rack.
There are plenty of place names in the
Iberian peninsula that are derived directly from Arabic, such as Albacete,
Gibraltar, Almería, Guadalajara, Trafalgar, Benidorm,
Córdoba, and plenty of others.
All-in-all, Arabic is quite prevalent in
Spanish still, and when we come across words like albóndigas, azafrán,
alfombra, aceña, joroba, and many others, we can put money
on our hunches concerning their provenance. Many Arabic words have made it into
English too, such as arsenal, assassin, alcohol, which are
embedded in English, but also words borrowed, such as nadir, tajine,
halal, hijab, and suq.
We dismiss the origins of our words at our peril – learning where words are from can help us learn a whole new vocabulary from other languages, and can also help us remember them better. Arabic has had a massive impact on European language, culture, history and society, and deserves our recognition for the contribution it has made.
